Chapter Text
Moving to San Francisco was not anything Rocky had planned for, and yet here he is, in California traffic in a U-Haul that he has both come to loathe and appreciate.
Thankfully, he is not moving across the country this time. He just finished with assisting the robotics team at NASA with some issues they were having for another Mars rover prototype. Yeah, no biggie, just another honest day of work. Or at least it had been. It's something he has to leave behind, now. Or at least, that's what his doctors had told him.
Rocky was born for engineering, picked up on the programming part of robotics pretty cleanly. They went hand-in-hand in his brain, so it felt like the natural progression of things. The work itself was fulfilling and not as stressful as his old coworkers had felt it is. Rocky thrived in the environment.
Unfortunately, there was a part of it that stressed him in a way that he couldn't detect until it was too late.
Space exploration paved way for the most advanced engineering that humanity could produce. You couldn't half ass propelling into space, not without exploding during the process. That part was wonderful.
The space exploration part itself seemed to have been the problem.
It's something Rocky would rather shove away into the back of his mind, think of little as the incident as possible. It's his greatest shame, it lost him a lot of respect in his field. Even thinking about it makes him slump back in the drivers seat.
He lets out a long, exhausted sigh. It does no good to think too hard about the past, the only way he can go is forward. And thankfully, forward leads to the exit and finally off the highway.
The drive itself had not been very long, just about 10 hours by car, which is nowhere near his longest move. It's the fact that it is first of all, California traffic, and a major city he is moving to at that. The trip originally was supposed to be around 4 hours, but clearly fate had other things in store. Again, not his longest move yet, but it has been incredibly draining.
Rocky had been packing until the very last minute too, thankfully he had the help of some of his old coworkers, who wanted to send him off with one last farewell. It hurt leaving his friends behind, but there wasn't much work in the area that would satisfy him and not involve NASA. So, San Francisco it is. They had promised to visit him in the future, and he's sure that they would. Lots of places to see, and staying with Rocky saves on a hotel.
The idea of being alone until then does not sit well with him. He primarily used his old apartment to sleep and eat, not much else. He either worked too far into the evening to have the alone time, or was out hanging out with some coworker or old college friend. Went on a few dates even, though no real connection. He never really stuck around for long, anyways.
His job had him moving around quite a bit, though it was always within the same field. It felt different, leaving everything behind. He really was going to have to build his way from the ground up. That's fine. He'll be fine. Especially once he's able to take a break.
The only breaks he allowed himself were for gas, not much else. He barely even ate, just the protein bar before he set out. Being on the road was a pain, it's just better to get it over with.
Before he gets to his apartment though, he does have to eat. Again, he has only had the one protein bar. His head is killing him, he hadn't really been sleeping very well the past few nights either, and it's getting difficult to focus on the road. Better to stop and eat than not and cause a car accident. It wouldn't be the best way to introduce himself to the neighborhood.
He's close enough to the apartment complex that the gas stations and fast food spots fade away and give to more of the town. He scans the road for anything that isn't sloppy fast food. He absolutely refuses to stomach a Big Mac. He has standards, still.
A diner does pull into view, though, and it looks charming enough. It doesn't look like a tourist trap at least, which will save his wallet.
Rocky pulls in and before he leaves the U-Haul, just lets himself sit. He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. He definitely should have pulled over earlier. Again, there's no use in past regrets. He'll just have to eat, grab a cup of coffee, and crash for a few hours on the ground of his empty apartment. Absolutely no way he is going to be able to move anything in like this.
Shit, especially not without any help. He kind of forgot about that part.
Whatever. Whatever! He needs food.
He unbuckles and hops out of the U-Haul. He pats the door after he shuts, for good luck, or something.
Walking into the diner, Rocky can tell it's nothing particularly unique. He doesn't need it to be, though. There's only about 4 other people in the diner eating. It's about seven in the morning on a Saturday, after all. There's two in a booth chatting, on the other side there's an old man nodding and contemplating the news playing on one of the mounted televisions, and then one man at the bar finishing a cup of coffee looking at his phone.
Rocky pays particular attention to the man at the bar.
He wears a yellow rain coat, and Rocky can see the collar of what's probably a cardigan peak out. He wears a blue beanie that conceals most of his blonde hair, but there are small tufts that peak out at the bottom. His glasses look like they're about to fall off from where Rocky can see his side profile, but the man is completely unbothered by it, still just looking down at his phone.
"Grace," The waitress behind the bar calls to him, and pours more coffee into his cup. "You're going to break your glasses one day and no one will feel sorry for you." Her voice is lighthearted, and the man laughs.
"Yeah, you're probably right. Hasn't happened yet though." He takes his glasses and puts them back on his face correctly.
Oh. He's heard that name before.
No, he knows this man.
Rocky's vision begins to swim. He grabs his head and doubles over in pain. He cannot register the scream that comes from one of diner patrons, and cannot feel when multiple people rush over to him to check to see if he's okay.
His mind is elsewhere. It's pulled itself open and forcing him to remember things that no living organism should have any right to.
An overwhelming amount of information assaults him.
He remembers, first, dying. He remembers living a long, happy life. He remembers his mate being at his side when he passes. He remembers wishing to have someone else there at his side, but he is gone now, left many, many years before Rocky did. He remembers how deeply he wished to meet him again, to hold him again and to this time protect him for any heartache he could ever possibly experience.
His memories work in reverse.
He's on the beach now, running around on all five legs, chirping and splashing into the ocean. He splashes someone who laughs at him, telling him to quit it before splashing him back. He cannot see, not like he can now, but the voice reverberates deep in Rocky's carapace.
He's on a space ship now, in a ball watching old episodes of Star Trek with the same person as before. They're on the ground, sleeping in a bundle of blankets, and Rocky is trying not to mourn the potential loss of his best friend. He is dying, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. Not in this ship. Not when they're still a week away from his planet and there's nothing but non-nutritional sludge for him to eat and all Rocky can do is stay close and keep him warm and beg the universe to keep him alive just a little longer.
He's moved to a different time on the space ship where he is burning alive, smoke coming off his carapace as the atmosphere tears him apart and he is dragging his best friend to the medical robot to please please please save him. He is somehow, able to drag himself back to his own atmosphere once the other is safe, and watches the human until he wakes up and promises Rocky he will watch him sleep, as long as he promises to wake up later. He promises.
He's in a different space ship now, all alone. He has been alone for forty years. The only company left is the corpses that litter the ship. He could do nothing to save them, had no idea why they died and he is still left to live. What life is this, anyways. He will die eventually, and with him the rest of his species, his entire solar system. He has failed his mission. It is when he has this thought that his ship alerts him of irregular astrophage readings. No. No, it's not possible. There is someone else out there.
Rocky is living nearly 700 years in reverse. His human brain cannot comprehend it all, only a pitifully small fraction is able to take. He sees his life as an engineer trying to save his planet, and before that where he simply lived his life with his mate, and then how he courted his mate, when they first met, before they met, when he was nothing but a little pebble learning how to sing.
This is not the first life Rocky has lived. He had not been human either. There is one thing though, that has stuck out in his memories.
It is that he and the man now next to him on the ground—rubbing circles into his back and asking if he can hear him (barely) and that they need to call an ambulance—knew each other.
Rocky grabs onto Grace's cardigan. He's felt this cardigan before, though not like this. Through a barrier that protected them from the other's atmosphere. It's soft.
Grace holds onto his arm. Does he remember, too?
How could he.
"Grace..." He chokes out. He's not even sure it's audible. But Grace holds onto him tighter.
Rocky faints.